Death, Poorly Timed
by forever-ioand-ever
Summary: In which Lucas finds Henry in a most compromising position, and Henry finds Lucas more knowledgeable than first presumed. Oneshot. Not this bombastically written.


_A big thank you to Annie Hawkclaw for the prompt on this one, I had fun with it!(: Hope you enjoy it!_

_Also, I make a very small mention of Oscar from my eponymous oneshot. It's not necessary to read it to know what's going on, it's just a passing comment, but if you're curious, go check it out(:_

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><p>She had stood him up. Again. He looked up from his watch, out onto the waters of the East River, seeing the sunset as a fiery manifestation of his anger. He clenched a fist around the object in his hand and forcefully whipped it out into the bay. The dinner coupon fluttered gently into the river, a 20% discount never to be used.<p>

Lucas stepped back from the pier's railing and, sighing to himself, collapsed into a park bench. He really thought Jessie would be different. He'd felt something more with her, a stronger connection that seemed it just might last. Even if they only had gone on one successful date. Apparently he was wrong.

Lucas listened to the gentle crash and churn of the bay's waves below him. They lulled him into a drowsy calm. He found himself sitting, staring, listening, but not really thinking. Not until a rustle of leaves behind him jolted him from his stupor.

{•*•*•*•}

Henry burst out of the river, gasping for air. With every breath he tried to take in, he felt something was still suffocating him, though his attacker was long gone. He blew a harsh breath from his mouth and dislodged the damp paper that had covered it and precluded his breathing.

"Bloody rubbish," he said, berating whoever had tossed the pollutant in the river. He reached back out for it and pulled it and himself out of the river and to the nearest large foliage.

He tensed his muscled and wrapped his arms around himself, trying to keep warm as best as he could. When the shivers had begun to subside, he pulled out the paper that had almost suffocated him again. A coupon for one of the city's ubiquitous pizza parlors. Henry crumpled the coupon for the second time in its adventurous night, then discreetly reached his hand out of the bush to drop it in a trash receptacle.

He tried to be as quiet as possible, for the bin was next to an occupied bench. He released the coupon, and immediately a large set of hands were locked on his own.

{•*•*•*•}

Lucas turned at the papery noise of leaves rustling. He watched in some combination of fascination, horror, and awe as a human hand extended out from the foliage and dropped something into the trashcan. He wasnt sure which of the three emotions was the one that led him to reach out and grab the appendage, but something in his brain prompted him to do so, and now his only true emotion was fear, for he was holding a very real, very alive, slightly damp human limb.

Inside the bush, Henry struggled to remain calm. Why did he have to be so obsessive about pollution in the first place? What exactly did one do when their hand was grabbed while they were recovering from their latest death hiding in a bush nude?

His only idea was to get a look at his hand's captor. Trying his best not to move his visible limb, Henry knelt down and found an angle at which he could see out of the bush, and into the face of Lucas Wahl.

Henry wasnt sure whether to be relieved or even more worried. Lucas did, after all, have an explanation of the skinny-dipping scenario to go on, but he probably wouldn't shut up about finding Henry naked at the river tomorrow at work.

He had to take his chances. He could easily sway Lucas into not reporting the incident to the precinct, at least not formally reporting it, and Abe happened to be out of town on a buying trip, so Henry really didn't have anyone to call. His decision made, he pulled his arm back and sharply whispered his assistant's name.

Lucas ricocheted like a boomerang, firsts being pulled in by the mysterious hand, then releasing his grip from the apparated appendage, stumbling back to where he wa originally standing. He thought he'd heard his name, and looked to the bush fearfully.

"Lucas," the bush whispered again.

"H...hello?" The young man stuttered.

"Don't be frightened, Lucas, it is only I."

The odd but nonetheless proper grammatical structure of the bush's reply, along with its strong British accent and the head and shoulders that hesitantly popped out of the top revealed to Lucas that it was indeed only his boss.

"Doc Morgan?" He asked dubiously, though he could now clearly see the man in the bush, who rolled his eyes and gave a nod.

"What are you doing in a bush?"

"I... Erm, I seem to have gone sleepwalking again."

Lucas's eyes widened. "You mean you're... You're..."

"Yes, Lucas." Henry sighed with exasperation. "I am currently nude."

Lucas stepped back, bewilderment filling his features. "Do you... I mean... Wha-"

"Do you have a car nearby?" Henry asked, halting Lucas' erratic stuttering.

"Uh, yeah, but... You..."

"Give me your jacket."

"What does that have to do with-"

"Jacket. _Now_." Henry emphatically demanded. He reached his hand out of the bush. Lucas, utterly bewildered, shrugged out of his windbreaker and handed it to his boss. Jacket in hand, Henry slid back into the bush and reemerged wearing the windbreaker. It was a bit long on him due to the doctors' height difference, which Henry had been hoping on, so it covered his body sufficiently, though not acceptably.

Lucas stared in shock as his boss emerged from the bush indeed only wearing the windbreaker. For te first time in knowing the other man, Lucas finally saw Henry slouching in his posture; it made the windbreaker diminutively longer.

With a turn of his head and a small motion of his hands, Henry directed Lucas out of the park and into his parked car at a significantly fast pace. Lucas found himself running on autopilot, not able to formulate a coherent thought from the curious chaos wreaking through his night.

Only when they were both in the car and its engine had hummed to life did Lucas speak.

"Uh, Doc?" He asked, drumming his fingertips rapidly along the steering wheel. "What now?"

"Take me home." Henry commanded, adding a "please" as a genteel afterthought.

"I would... But Doc, I dunno where you live."

"Corner of Suffolk and Stanton." Henry begrudgingly offered.

Directions given, Lucas began to drive around and out of the parking lot. E tried his best to avoid thinking about Henry's nudity, but couldn't shake the disturbing, un-Doctor-Morgan-like concept from his mind.

"One other thing, Lucas," Henry added as they pulled out into the avenues. "If anyone calls you and the call has anything to do with me or my well-being, say nothing."

"Ookay...," Lucas replied dubiously.

Boss and associate did not say another word for the rest of the ride. When Lucas dropped Henry off, he wasnt quite sure what to do with himself, so he offered a small wave and a halfhearted smile. Henry barely acknowledged him and went inside the antique shop. Both men fell into a restless sleep that night, for entirely different reasons.

{•*•*•*•}

"Morning, Doc," Lucas offered as his boss entered the autopsy suite. He was trying not to be completely awkward after the events of the past night And the information he'd gotten this morning on top of that, so he continue to assiduously pick at the oddities in the muscle tissue in front of him.

"Same to you, Lucas," Henry replied. He removed his jacket and scarf and placed them on the back of his office chair. Grabbing a monogrammed white coat from the wall hook, Henry then suited up in his doctoral gear and returned to the autopsy room.

It was still early, albeit not as early as was his usual arrival. After the chaos of the last night, Henry felt he deserved an extra hour of shut-eye. All said to say that Lucas was he only other soul in the morgue, though a few more bodies were also present. Henry walked over to Lucas and leaned over his shoulder as he continued to pull the odd fibers from the muscle tissue.

"I returned your jacket to your locker." He whispered, out of paranoia more than anything.

Lucas subtly nodded, too focused on the task at hand to move his head more than a mere fraction of an inch. He plucked another strange fiber from The tissue and placed it with the others he'd gathered over the past half hour. As he heard Henry begin to walk away, he dropped his tweezers and turned to the doctor.

"Hey, uh, I don't wanna pry or anything, but just to let you know, Jo was down here looking for you earlier..."

Henry spun around. "What did you tell her, Lucas?"

"Nothing!" Lucas replied defensively, startled by Henry's ferocity over the subject. Henry's demeanor seemed to calm, and, he didn't know why, but the calm prompted Lucas to mutter, "What she told me didn't make any sense anyway."

"And what did she tell you?" Henry asked, taking a step forward. His voice was quiet, afraid, his eyes wide and almost vulnerable. "Tell me everything."

"She said you two were out on a lead when you ran ahead. She tried to catch up but she couldn't find you. She thought she heard a struggle in one of the alleys and went to see if it was you and if you were okay. When she got back there, The suspect was standing there staring at the ground. She arrested him and started searching for you and she couldn't find you and the suspect was saying he'd killed you and you were gone and then Jo was panicking and basically they're scouring the city for your remains."

Henry leaned on the nearest table, head in his hands. He let out an exasperated groan, his palms muffling the sound.

"You're _kidding_ me."

"She really thinks you're dead, Doc."

Henry looked back at him with a deadpan stare.

"Kicked the can."

Henry's brow raised.

"Pushing up daisies."

"For the love of all that is well and good, please _stop_!" Henry cried, returning his head to his hands.

"_Someone's_ a little touchy." Commented the assistant.

Henry groaned inwardly, muttering quietly to himself. "This is just _fantastic_."

"Doc?"

"What _now_, Lucas?" Henry whined, straightening his posture. The only way this day could possibly be going worse for him was if he actually died.

"I, uh, I was thinking about what Jo said and all..." He stammered, dancing his fingers inbetween each other.

"And?" Henry begged, cocking his head to the side like a curious puppy, though his face reflected a boiling frustration and anger.

"And, well, uh, she said you disappeared at seven o clock, and I found you in the bush five minutes later, but you would've been up in the Bronx then and you can't get from there to the East River Park that quickly unless you're superman or something..."

Henry took that thought back. This could get worse.

At that moment, the phone began to ring. Henry pointed Lucas toward the device. The young man hesitantly picked up the wall phone.

"Hello?"

"You what?"

"He _what_?"

"Oh my God, Jo... Thank you for letting me know."

Lucas slowly hung the phone back on the wall. He looked back at Henry with a lost, confused, mournful expression.

"The... The suspect had pictures."

"Of _what_‽" Henry demanded, grabbing Lucas' shoulders and desperately clinging to them.

"Pictures of you. Pictures of you... Dead."

This definitely could get worse.

{•*•*•*•}

"Okay, a little to the left... Tilt your chin up... A little more, little more... Perfect!"

"Are you _absolutely_ sure you can make this look real?" Henry asked as he craned his neck in the uncomfortable position Lucas had directed him.

"Part of being a former film major was studying entry-level special effects makeup, and I see bruises everyday. I think I can make a very realistic thumbprint on your neck. Now, no taking till I finish this. You're throwing off my vibe."

Lucas dabbed the makeup on Henry's neck, spread it, brushed it, and finally tapped it with the pad of his thumb.

"And there you have it! Strangulation bruising, to a T!"

Henry rose from his chair and looked at himself in the antique mirror. Fingertip-shaped purple blotches dotted his neck in perfect placement for a strangulation done by hand. The bruises' colors ebbed and flowed according to the pressures that had been placed on his neck the night before, though Lucas didn't know that was truly the case.

"My God, Lucas, I look like a walking corpse! The detail and the patterning is phenomenal!"

Henry went to touch his finger to the false bruises. Lucas reached out and grabbed his hand back.

"No touching. The powder is very delicate. I did _not_ just spend my lunch break painting bruises on your neck for you to wipe them away!"

Henry pulled his hand from Lucas' grasp and extended it for a handshake.

"Thank you for making me look almost dead." He smiled, the juxtaposition of situation and emotion quite odd, and not going unnoticed by Lucas.

"Never thought I'd hear that, but you're welcome?" He shrugged. He took Henry's hand and wasnt at all surprised by the firmness of his handshake. Lucas pulled a little twist of his own, though, wrapping Henry in a hug with his free arm. After an awkward few seconds, Lucas let go.

"Guess you're not the bro-hug type."

"If that is what _that_-" Henry waved his hands around trying to encircle the concept of the physical contact "-was, then no, no I am not. But I must confess I am something else. A deal is a deal, after all."

"Aw, Henry, you don't have to be so shy about it. We'll still accept you just the way you are." Lucas said, almost putting his arm around Henry's shoulder but thinking better of it.

Henry lifted a brow. How could Lucas possibly know what he was going to say?

"There's lots of people like you out there, it's pretty cool now- no one freaking out on you and stuff. And when the right guy comes along, we'll-"

"You really think I am about to tell you I'm homosexual?" Henry asked, cutting off Lucas' well wishes.

"Wait, so you're _not_ coming out of the closet?"

"Heavens, no. Not at all. When I promised, albeit begrudgingly, that I was going to explain my situation to you, I meant the whole Jo thinks I died in the Bronx but you found me naked in the East River at the same time conundrum. You might want to sit down for this."

Henry motioned to the plush furnishings of his living room. He and Lucas had come to the apartment to do the macabre makeup in order to avoid the others, Jo especially, from seeing that the bruises were fake. Henry knew the only way to keep his secret intact was to somehow get fatal bruising on his neck, and Lucas had both the medical and cosmetological knowledge required to pull it off. He'd already dug himself in a hole concerning his secret and his assistant, but had hoped Lucas would ask no questions of the request. He'd ended up, however, being bargained into telling Lucas the truth.

"What I am about to say does not leave this apartment, Lucas. Do you understand me?"

Lucas nodded.

"You can't tell _anyone_ what I am about to tell you. Not your family or your girlfriend and especially not Jo, Hanson, and the Lieutenant."

"What about Oscar?"

Henry sighed. Of course he would ask to tell his pet rat. The fact that he was about to reveal this to someone who had a pet rat and talked to it as a fellow human being on a regular basis thoroughly disconcerted him.

"Yes, Lucas. You can tell the rat. But no one else. Not a _soul_."

"Got it, Doc. Hit me."

Henry took a deep breath, fighting the voice in his mind that he'd spent the past two centuries training to keep himself from revealing the truth.

"My name is Henry Morgan. I was born on September 19, 1779. I was fatally shot on April 7, 1814. I should have died, but I didn't. Rather, I did die, I just did not remain that way."

Before Lucas could find any words to say, Henry unbuttoned the first few buttons of his shirt, revealing the extensive dermal damages left on his chest by the not-so-fatal shot. Lucas cautiously extended a hand, his eyes wide with confusion and bewilderment. Henry moved closer and allowed Lucas's fingers to study the wound.

"It's _real_." He whispered, blinking profusely.

"You know I know nothing of special-effects wound creation."

Lucas slowly leaned back into the chair, letting the cushions envelop his body as he sunk into their clutches, as he let his mind begin to try to wrap around what Henry was telling him.

"Every time I die, i come back in water, nude. So all of those public indecency charges, I really should have been dead.

"Which means that Jo was right, and I did die in the Bronx last night. The pictures she has must have been taken before my body disappeared. Only, because of my condition, I reappeared in the East River instead of making an appearance in the afterlife."

"So you're... You're..." Lucas puzzled over what exactly would describe his boss's condition, still struggling with wrapping his mind around all that had just been told to him, let alone putting a word to it.

"Immortal. I am immortal, Lucas. I've spent the past two hundred years trying to figure out how and why i am this way, and all I've come to understand is that stabbings and shootings aren't nearly the most brutal ways to go."

"That's..." Lucas began. The confusion on his face started to melt, and was replaced with... Adoration?

"That's so awesome! You're like a superhero or something!"

A long, frustrated sigh escaped Henry's mouth. He was _definitely_ going to regret this.


End file.
